between the poles
all through the
slow and formal fan dance
by the girls
I wait
knowing that like those girls
he has to be
sewn into his costume
that it takes more than an hour
to ready for his role
but finally Serey is there
onstage
alone
in an orange skirt
and gold top
and gold tail
and headdress
as the mermaid
Sovann Machha
she dances
around the stage
in stately circles
and slow one-legged turns
her hands curving through the air
then Hanuman
the white monkey king
appears
and Hanuman is Samnang
and I know this is his first time
dancing this role
before an audience
Samnang follows Serey around the stage
in all her mermaid’s glitter
and my heart races for him
he bounds monkey-like
holds his dagger high
approaches her from all sides
and in the end
he wins her over
and cartwheels offstage
after a celebratory coconut dance
there’s another classical dance
then for the last piece
Samnang is onstage again
in loose blue trousers
with all the dancers—
it’s the fishing dance
with the flirting guys
circling the shy girls
the advances
the rebuffs
the beat
of the bamboo fish traps
on the floor
I love this one
and I am hoping
especially I can
learn this dance
but near the end of the fishing dance
I lose one performer
then another
and when I try to see Samnang
his whole body disappears
I want it to be just
the after-blindness
from someone’s flash
or a stage light
but it’s not
I sink down in my chair
put on my coat
cover my head
with my scarf
the lights come up
the applause is too loud
people rise all around me
I let them climb over my knees
file out
while I stay in my seat
quiet
hidden
eventually Samnang finds me
when the numbness
is in my jaw
and up my arm
and I’m blind and
the crescent of triangles
is flickering and arcing
right
out
of
his
head
hey
he says
knowing
I reach my hand out
he takes it
squats down
kisses my hair
and helps me up
and outside to the parking lot
inside the car I’m shivering
Samnang reclines my seat
blasts the heat
covers me with his jacket
drives
he helps me into
YiaYia’s house
I hear my mother and Toby
I feel myself led
to my mother’s bed in the den
I feel my shoes removed
by Samnang
my coat removed
by Samnang
smelling his head
hot, damp and not yet showered
after dance
and I hear some words
stay
sit
Emma
while
it seems everyone has left
the voices are farther
the dark is smooth
then the edge of the bed
dips
and someone is
beside me
with me
Samnang
still
and quiet
he takes my hand
and I curl against him
and sleep
he’s gone of course
when I wake in the night
and go out to the kitchen
for some toast which I eat
sitting on the counter
in the ghostly blue streetlight
and in my head I hear
hey
and I think
maybe now
I’ll start to know
my life
in the study I find my phone
in my bag on the floor
and from the bed set up for my mom
I call Samnang
wake him
apologize
we murmur
our voices low
both of us half-asleep
you were a great Hanuman I tell him
thanks he says sorry you got sick
he tells me he sat and talked
with my mom and Toby after I fell asleep
before YiaYia got home
he tells me Mom asked him
if he knew
what I’d decided
and he said he didn’t
but he hoped I’d stay
even though he understood
that maybe I needed to go
and she said she felt exactly the same
she mentioned a dance project he says
and I realize I haven’t told him
my plans for Dance for Tohoku
I close my eyes and tell Samnang my idea
the vision that was so clear
in that creative burst
during my last migraine
my dance program
of hip-hop
followed by soran bushi
more hip-hop
a folk dance from Tohoku
then a circle dance of tanko bushi
with the audience
all to raise money for Tohoku
and I tell him what Tracy suggested
tanko bushi for halftime shows
then the full program in March
but the full program doesn’t feel quite full enough
I say groggily
the program needs more . . . something
then Samnang says soft but so clear
that the words plunge deep into my ear
maybe you should add some other kind of dance
like Cambodian
Cambodian? I say
to raise money for Tohoku?
yeah, like the fishing dance
or the monkey dance
I don’t get it I say
how does that relate to Japan?
well, in the villages where my relatives live
tons of things were funded by Japanese NPOs—
schools, wells, irrigation systems, even some of the houses
you could mix in Cambodian dance
Cambodian dancers raising money, too
as a kind of thank-you to Japan
I take this in
what he’s saying
my eyes wide open now
you mean, like, some members of your troupe
plus the school dance club
performing together?
why not? he says
and I smile
there on my mother’s healing bed
in my grandmother’s den
holding the voice of Samnang
close to my ear
that
would be amazing I say
yeah he says
but Samnang I whisper
if we did that
we’d have to start practicing soon
to be ready for the one-year anniversary
and I hear his breath catch
as he calculates
that date
I sleep late
shower
eat cereal
and finally
call Madoka
midnight
her time
turn on Skype
I tell her
please
when I can finally see her on the screen
seated at her desk
face brightened by her study lamp
her favorite sax-player posters
Sadao Watanabe, Kaori Kobayashi and Mindi Abair
barely visible in the dark behind her
I take a long breath and say
I won’t be coming back with my father
there are too many reasons to stay—
my mom, Zena, dance
Samnang . . .
she smiles, wearily, says it’s okay
she hadn’t expected I would
and had worried that I actually might
even though I shouldn’t
when I squint at her, puzzled
she elaborates
just take care of your mother
that’s your obligation now
and I marvel at how in just a couple months
my thinking seems to have shifted slightly
like a fault slip in an earthquake
away from Madoka’s clear-cut view of life
with obligation guiding everything
and I’m glad that I made this decision
not just by ranking my obligations
maybe I have
become a little more of an
amerika-jin
but Miyagi I say
your relatives need so much help
your grandparents, your cousins, those towns
up and down the coast of Tohoku . . .
Emma she says
it’s just a half year or so, right?
and besides, other people are helping, too
that’s everyone’s responsibility, not just yours
well, tell your cousins
I haven’t forgotten them I say
and that I’m starting a project
to raise money for their schools
so we’ll want to know what they need—
can you ask them to make some lists?
talk with their teachers, start thinking
of what they might purchase
with funds we raise?
I explain my dance idea—
Tracy’s crazy suggestion
of tanko bushi at halftime
and the full Dance for Tohoku program
for the one-year anniversary
Emma-chan, sugoi!—great!
they need so much she says
band instruments, sports uniforms, cameras . . .
everything was swept away
then she tells me about the service for her aunt
changes in her grandparents’ town
and the plans for rebuilding
we’ll do what we can to help I say
after we end our Skype
I shut myself in my room
and make a card
using the outline of a runner
I find on the Internet
shaped a bit like my mother
traced again and again
to create a woman speeding
across the page
inside
I write my message
with my revised poem
a healing breast
on a running woman
is hardly noticed
early afternoon I give my mother the card
and I tell her I look forward
to being her pacer
when she starts running again
in spring
and suddenly she’s bawling
like she hasn’t ever let herself cry
through any of this cancer mess
YiaYia comes running
followed by Toby
and at first they wonder
what I did now
to upset Mom
but I tell them my decision
and Toby does this new high five
he’s been trying to teach me
and my mom smiles through her tears
and YiaYia hugs me tight
then I call my father in New York
and he is so relieved
he sounds like he might cry, too
finally I call Samnang
hey he says
hey I say
you decided he says
I decided I say
well? he asks
can you come get me? I say
now? I’m at my mother’s
and I’m watching Lena and Van
can’t someone else stay with them?
he takes forever to think this over
and I have to summon all
my Japanese patience
as I wait
let me see what I can do he finally says
it may take me half an hour, okay?
finally an hour later he rings the doorbell
sticks his head inside to tell YiaYia
he’ll have me home by dinner
then takes my hand
on the walkway I pause to face him
as he eyes me with anticipation
I ask if he can take me to a place
where we can see water
if not the sea
at least a pond
or lake
or river
so we can talk
there are about two hours
left of daylight
he looks toward the car
examines the sky
scrunches his face
let me call Serey he says
and I squint at him thinking
what?
for a while
he paces up and down the sidewalk
smiling, waving his hands
jabbering into his cell phone
then he returns to me
I asked her to come, too he says
and to my quizzical look
he bursts out laughing
pats my shoulder and says
kidding!
she was giving me directions
I climb into the front seat
then shriek and bump my head
at the sound of two voices
saying hi from the back—
Lena and Van
bundled in winter jac
kets
sorry, I had to bring them Samnang says
oh I say, taken aback
rubbing my head
it’s fine, but . . .
I tell Samnang to wait a minute
and run back inside
grab some origami paper
and in the car I send some sheets
and a little instruction booklet
to Lena and Van in the backseat
and up front start to fold
a crane, a frog, a cicada
guys, we’re going on a mystery ride
Samnang announces
to find something
golden treasure? Van asks
water says Samnang
the kids frown
the beach? Lena asks
maybe . . .
but I didn’t bring my bathing suit! Van whines
it’s too cold anyway Lena says
and Van scowls
shrinks down in his seat
until I toss him a frog
and its companion
cicada
on the back of a piece of origami paper
Samnang has scrawled
495 95 113 1A
left